Consumer Rpt blesses Harbor Freight generator?

"Storing a fully loaded torque wrench can result in a set in the spring, weakening the spring over time. But if you completely offload the spring to the zero setting, other components within the wrench may move a little. And in the world of torque, a little is a lot. Reapplying spring compression will shift orientation of these components, affecting accuracy."

Guess it is best to read the manual.

 

For years I spun mine right down. They all seem pretty close in funky tests, so I guess no harm lol.

 

Since this has strayed, I would personaaly appreciate a good, bad and ugly Harbor Freight tool thread. But, I am too lazy to start it.

 

Here ya go! Thanks to @Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

Lazy Thread: Harbor Freight Tools | PriusChat

 

There are a variety of inverters on the market, (but not tons)
not just HF or Honda
Stop in a Menards or HD and look at the others.

The primary problem I have found is that the other brands are nearly impossible to start in colder weather even with electronic start, mainly coinciding with California emissions deleting the manual choke

The other brands tend to not idle very smoothly and are a tad louder as well though I have had no other issues with our 2kw unit (and 2kw is the limit, it won’t even attempt to start a small AC unit even though continuous is well within the spec)

Good Luck

 

I have a pair of the 3000/3500 watt Harbor Freight Predator inverter gen sets. They have both worked well. The longest outage was 4 days and we had continuous power the whole time.

I use them to power the whole house via a transfer switch... except the AC. The AC was wired directly to the distribution panel built into the meter and my transfer switch is between that panel and the main panel inside the garage.

One of the generators is enough to run the house, including central heating. That's how we normally run it. The generators can stack (run in parallel) to give 6kW of power. That's what we do when it's time to add fuel. We start the second one, and when the first is cool we add gas. When the second one starts to run low we again start the idle generator and turn off the one that's hot so it can cool down.

We also run both gens in parallel when we want to use the oven.

To run the whole house (split phase 220v) I have installed a step up transformer that converts the 110V to split 110/220. Without that transformer the transfer switch can only power the circuits that are on one leg or the other.

Dan

 

You guys can also turn your Prius into a generator.
Check the link below at Plugoutpower.com

Very quiet compared to any other generator.
Bigger gas tank than any generator.
Limited maintenance since you use the Prius already.
Prius uses fuel far better than any generator.



http://www.RedBullet.net

http://www.ProjectLithium.com/?ref=mG0GE

http://www.Pulstar.com

http://www.PlugOutPower.com
Use code 7373

 

That sounds great- any details on the one you used?

 

My CARB-compliant eu2000i has a manual choke. Is that a really new requirement? I bought mine in 2017.

 

I used this one. Holy Crap. I thought I bought a 10KVA model. I see now that it's only 5kva That makes it suitable for handling the output of one of the generators at full load, but not both at full load. I bought it from a guy who was an electrical contractor for a project. They ordered 5 of these and needed 4. The return shipping and restocking fee combined was high enough that they just decided to chuck them.

The magic is to find a transformer that allows an input of 120 and a center tapped 220v. That gives you 110V to neutral for leg 1 and 110V to neutral for leg 2 that is 180 degrees out of phase. Leg to leg is 220v . The nomenclature of "secondary 120/240" on this label should mean that it's split phase.

 

The other problem is price.

You can buy a brand new HF genset every time there's a prolonged power outage for what the Prius setup costs.....well.....unless you live someplace like Baghdad where there they have rolling blackouts and brownouts regularly.

 

take a peak at the Honda and wen generators. Google "Honda clone". you'll find a ton are exact copies.

the people I know that have copies love them

 

Personally, I'd like to trade my 3.5 kw predators for one of the new 9kw inverter gensets from Harbor Freight. It's much more expensive, but it will do a split phase 240 without needing the external transformer. The 9kW unit is also bigger and heavier.

My wife was able to handle the smaller ones when I was out of town. She added fuel as needed and started / stopped them using the electric start.

While many of the generators LOOK the same, you should take that with a grain of salt. It's easy to build a plastic shroud that looks like the competition, but it's the internal components that count.

 

I bought this one a few years ago right after Irma. I recommend it. Lots of youtubes about this model too. It runs very smooth and has good consistent output on propane. Electric start.
Its a dual fuel I guess there all DF now. I have an auto switchover propane tank valve with gauges. I got gas backup too.

But as Dan said there all Chinese junk unless you buy like a Honda which is very pricey. I know a few people who have Honda's I guess there very quiet.

I have another older bigger generator that I use as backup that does not run half as smooth as this one but is ok. So I have 2 generators. Not going through what i went through with Irma. Out of power for 9 days. The other side of the street came back on 2 days before our side did.
Rental house down the street on my side never trimmed there oaks back lost some big branches and took our drop down.

I also have a low start up current window shaker. Its a 5000 btu with a 7 amp compressor turn on and 2.5 amp run.

 

Go on Amazon search

champion generator 76553

it’s not heavy to move it has a metal lever you lift it and it rolls nice.